Where the boss scrambles eggs for his trainees

"This is where the boss himself does the cooking" is written in white on the black apron that trans-o-flex boss Wolfgang P. Albeck has put on today. Today he will be scrambling 50 eggs, a sprig of chives and five packets of cooked ham. They will be eaten by 15 trainees and students who have come to the traditional trainee breakfast in a meeting room at the Weinheim headquarters of trans-o-flex Expressdienst. Those who do not have a prior appointment at college or university can take advantage of the opportunity to have an informal chat with the management and each other over a hearty breakfast between 9.00 and 10.30 am. trans-o-flex currently has a total of 61 training and study places available throughout Germany. 29 new young people will be starting this autumn. In mid-June, there were still a total of 11 places available for integrated degree students or in traditional training programmes. "Applications are still possible and we are confident that we can still fill most of the vacancies," says Albeck, who also takes a personal interest in training young people.

"Training is a win-win affair," says Albeck. "We can offer young people interesting opportunities, because the possibilities in the logistics industry have never been so diverse. At the same time, we benefit from this as a company because we can discover talent and develop them in exactly the skills that we and our customers need." A growing number of managers at trans-o-flex have completed integrated degree programmes or apprenticeships with the company. "And we offer jobs to all those who successfully complete their training."

So far, trans-o-flex has been able to fill almost all training places every year. However, the effort put into this is increasing. Albeck: "Our HR staff go to job and training fairs with trainees, we participate in Girls‘ and Boys‘ Days to get children and young people excited about logistics jobs, and we also help unemployed young people for whom logistics can possibly provide a new perspective on life with campaigns like the Joblinge initiative against youth unemployment."

The eight different training paths currently offered by trans-o-flex include four traditional apprenticeships and four integrated degree programmes: specialists for freight forwarding and logistics services, warehouse logistics specialists, IT specialists for application development, IT specialists for system integration as well as the integrated degree courses in business informatics, information technology and business administration with two different focuses (freight dispatch, transport and logistics or logistics management). In the integrated degree programmes, trans-o-flex works together with the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW), Mannheim, and with the IU International University, Erfurt.